An ambitious effort, but one that lacks verisimilitude.
In Andersen’s (Other Me, 2018) novel, an international best-selling author risks the ruination of his career when his past resurfaces.
Logan Bendt has a secret. When he walks across the stage to receive his diploma at Waterston College’s graduation ceremony, he’s going to reveal to the world that he’s actually the much older, reclusive best-selling author Roberts Bree, who’s scheduled to give the commencement speech. He’s also secretly in love with his favorite professor, Dr. Alyssa Kennedy. After the truth comes out, he and Alyssa act on their feelings for each other—but then his former flame, Yvette Mélisande, resurfaces, claiming he abandoned a child he didn’t know he had. Logan is certain that little Mathieu isn’t his, and he realizes that he has to find a way to prove it. If he can’t, it could cause a scandal that could tarnish his career and reputation, and possibly cause the publication of his latest novel to be canceled. In a matter of days, he must track down Mathieu’s real father and win back Alyssa’s heart. However, the odds seem stacked against him, as Alyssa is heartbroken over the revelation and Yvette is determined to keep up the farce—but he might find some help from some friends in low places. This novel’s initial premise, involving Logan’s secret-identity ruse, is intriguing. However, the ensuing scandal over Logan’s past affair requires too much suspension of disbelief on the part of readers. The fact that the protagonist has an ex-lover in France—and the fact that she’s making an accusation that could easily be cleared up with a paternity test—aren’t believably career-ruining stakes, despite what the characters say. Logan and Alyssa’s relationship is also put on hold for the majority of the novel; indeed, another couple receives a more satisfying denouement than the main characters do.
An ambitious effort, but one that lacks verisimilitude.Pub Date: July 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-983331-25-1
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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